“Love you, too. And tell your mommy, I love her.”
“I will.”
“And tell her I’m sorry I didn’t call. I just wasn’t thinking.”
“I will.”
58
THE LATE-NIGHT TALK show was live, and so it was dark when Peter left the hotel to walk to the studio. A few reporters from tabloids and one magazine reporter greeted him at the entrance of the hotel. Ever since they had discovered where he was staying, it had been that way—a small coterie of journalists plying their trade. Peter had woken up feeling much better, had eaten a good meal in his room, and had left for the studio a half hour early so that he could stop and answer questions en route. He laughed and joked with the reporters and explained about the earlier encounter with the Nazi sympathizers. He extolled the virtues of the reporters’ free society where political opinions could freely be expressed without fear, then pointed out that the boys had shown exactly the tendencies that on a large scale were used to rule a continent.
“Don’t be fooled by the diplomatic efforts and conciliatory rhetoric of the Nazi government. They are simply lies used by people whose base philosophy is just like that of those young men: hatred, intolerance, and violence,” he lectured into the tape recorders.
“Of all the insults they hurled at you, you responded to only one,” a reporter asked, “and that was being called a traitor. Why was that? Did it strike a chord? Do you feel you are betraying your government?”
“I don’t accept those gangsters as a government, and I certainly feel no loyalty to the murderers who have claimed power over my people. The reason I was intrigued by that insult in particular was that my entire nation has been labeled ‘traitors of the folk’ because of our lack of support for and active opposition to Nazi doctrine. I was curious to see if the young man was aware of that and was referring to my being English, or if he was just hurling a random insult.”
They continued chatting with him even as he decided it was time to start walking to the studio. They walked along with him, holding out their recorders or jotting down notes. Peter felt relaxed and friendly and did not bother to insert much in the way of propaganda or appeals into his answers. He just responded as truthfully as he could, feeling that in some ways the truth was the most eloquent appeal that he could make.
His mood remained good as he stepped into the studio and was introduced to the crew.
“We’ll provide coffee for you during the show,” a young man explained. “Since it’s a late-night show and we want everyone to be relaxed and cheerful, we offer the option of spiked coffee. Which would you prefer?”
“Spiked?” Peter queried.
“With whiskey. It’s called a Manhattan coffee by the people in the USA proper. Most of our guests prefer it.”
“I guess I’ll have to go with the spiked. I wouldn’t want to break any traditions.”
“Right-o.” The young man made a note on his clipboard.
There were three guests, and Peter was the last to be brought on. He could not discern if that was a place of honor—save the best to last, tease the audience with promises—or whether it was simply a filler for the late-night gap. Whatever the situation, he received an enthusiastic welcome and a cheerful greeting from the host and his other two guests.
The host’s name was Winston—a name that no one who knew him dared to contract to any nickname. Good-natured and humorous, he made his place on late-night television by never covering a serious topic on his program, and he had no intention of doing so that evening either.
“Well, Mr. Halifax, or rather, is it Dr. Halifax?” he began jovially after shaking Peter’s hand.
“Call me Peter, please.”
“Ah, good. First off, I wanted to explain that you have quite a serious message to convey to the American audience, isn’t that right?”
“I think they are aware of the seriousness of the situation overseas.”
“I mean, we’re talking a pretty messy business here, and I don’t want to give the audience any misimpressions. Among other things, you were, I believe, interrogated by the Gestapo?”
“Among other things.”
“I’ve heard that’s worse even than an IRS audit. Am I right?”
Peter wrinkled his nose. “Well, I must say, I’ve never been audited by your tax service, so it’d be hard to compare.” He thought of a phrase he had heard only the day before. “In fact, I’ve never filed taxes, so I don’t know what it’s like to be a wage slave, just an unwaged one.” The audience laughed, pleased at the humble, humorous response.
“Ah, yes,” Winston continued, “but they are also aware that you’re only human, and for once you might like to just relax and chat to us a bit and show us the less serious side of life in the Reich.”
“Yeah, the place is an absolute barrel of laughs,” Peter joked, and sipped the coffee provided.
“Maybe we should start with something easier—like your impressions of America. Certainly something about this country must have surprised you.”
Peter laughed as he thought about his afternoon experiences. Then he quite judiciously launched into a series of anecdotes concerning his adventures in the NAU. In order not to mention Zosia or anyone else, he happily incorporated all the humorous stories he had ever heard about first impressions of America as his own.
He talked about being stranded at the crossing as the other pedestrians streamed across the street against the light, wondering where the toilet was when all the signs indicated some sort of employee lounge or “rest room,” watching aninsanely brave tourist actually voluntarily approach a patrolman to ask directions, getting service from a store employee—who might even apologize for not having been more prompt! The list went on. There were the ubiquitous telephones with their direct connections to anywhere, the inexplicable gadgets, the laser scanners and exotic fruit. And there was the incredible wealth of choices. Peter retold a story he had heard about buying a razor.
“It really is quite remarkable. I brought nearly everything with me since I don’t have any real money, but somehow I forgot my razor. So, I went into a store and asked if they had a razor. Now, the answer one would get back home is yes or no. If the answer was yes, you would purchase said razor; if it was no, you might try again in a week or so. Of course, if you hear no three times in a row, you might check to see if razors had become illegal or needed a permit or ration card, but in general, the procedure is fairly straightforward. Anyway, I asked at this store here and this fellow behind the counter points to a display and there it was—a wall of razors! It took me half an hour to sort through the selection. I bought a disposable, and I must admit, I was quite proud when I got back to my room and discovered I really did have a razor. And not only that, the next time I went into the store, I was able to purchase a razor in less than three minutes!” The audience laughed. “Of course, I had studied beforehand and had notes in my pocket just in case I panicked.” They roared their approval.
Peter continued his stories, often taking in humorous comments and observations from his fellow guests or the host. They added their own stories and impressions—one of the guests was an ómigró—and the evening flowed smoothly aided by the Manhattan coffees they all drank.
“When this thing started wrapping itself around me in the car, like some sort of snake, I nearly panicked.” Peter was laughing at the memory of a friend of Alex’s story. “It struck me as a particularly odd way of arresting someone. Or was it an abduction? Just as well I didn’t attack the driver! Thought I had gotten nabbed by the Gestapo or something. You understand”—he turned to address the audience—“nearly anything that happens to us, that is our first assumption: you know, girlfriend dumps you, must be the Gestapo! Et cetera. So there I was—”
“So you don’t have seat belts there?” the host interrupted.
“No, and I never even suspected they existed! For me, a restraining device in a car meant being handcuffed to the steering wheel.”
“What?” Winston l
ooked stunned.
Peter explained the rules about his chauffeuring the family, then added, “I think I was the only one in the Reich who had to follow that rule.”
“What purpose did it serve?” the host asked. One of the guests, an artist named Itto, was making odd motions as if trying to work out exactly how he would steer around a turn with such a restriction on his movements.
“I haven’t a clue,” Peter responded bemusedly as he watched Itto’s attempts. Peter did know though: it was humiliation, pure and simple.
“Isn’t it dangerous without seat belts?” Winston asked with practiced naÔvetó.
Peter laughed again. “I suppose it would be if the cars ran, but since they spend most of their time on the sides of the roads, it’s not really a problem.” The audience laughed and Peter decided to repeat the old joke. “In fact, do you know why they put rear-window defrosters on Volkswagens?”
“Why?” Itto asked, giving up on his pretend driving.
“So that you can keep your hands warm when you’re pushing the car.”
That got a good laugh, and Peter continued repeating all the VW jokes he could remember. It was the “people’s car,” Hitler’s pet project.
They took a break finally, and when the cameras were back on, the host asked, “Jokes aside, what about your life in the Reich? Is there anything you could tell us about that?”
“You’re looking for humor?” Peter had expected that but was still undecided about exactly how to handle this turn of events.
“Well, something other than doom and gloom.”
“I suppose if you find stupidity funny, you’ll love hearing about my previous owner.” Peter had made his decision. He needed to remain human in the audience’s eyes, he needed them to think of the victims of the oppression as human as well. If it took humor to do that, then he would find humor for them.
“Now, you say owner —what do you mean by that?” Winston asked.
“I mean the guy who owned me,” Peter replied impishly.
“You mean like bought and paid for you?”
“Precisely.”
“Doesn’t that bother you? I mean, you just said owner the way I might say boss. Like it was a completely neutral concept.”
“Oh, at first it bothered me. I guess it still does, deep down, but there is only so long that you can play pretend. After that, you have to face facts, and eventually, I realized that he was the one who should have been ashamed. Not me.” Peter’s words were bolder than his true feelings—he did feel ashamed and he knew that Karl never would.
“So, like, what were you called; I mean, was there a job description?”
“Yes, quite funny, but they seemed rather reluctant to call me what I was. That’s one reason I’m here; I feel the populace there is uncomfortable with the system they have and might well overthrow the wretched edifice if given half a chance.”
Peter expected them to follow that line of thought into social upheaval and resistance, but instead Winston asked again, “So what did they call you, then?”
“Hmm, that’s difficult.” Peter closed his eyes and tried to think of a suitable translation for the cumbersome phrases in his documents without mentioning the word criminal. “Something like ‘subhuman, life-sentenced, privately maintained, domestic forced laborer on trial term available through the largesse of the department of internal affairs and in the end responsible and returnable to that department.’ ”
“What!”
“It’s a clumsy translation, but you get the gist.”
“Wow! You sort of lose track of the fact that you’re talking about a person.”
“Indeed. In fact, my name appears only incidentally in their files. Everything about me is registered either according to my number here”—Peter tapped his sleeve—“or under my owner’s name. You know, like you’d register a dog or a steer.”
“So, what was this owner guy like?”
“What was he like? I’ll tell you.” Peter then regaled them all with story after story of Karl’s idiocy. An occasional rearrangement of events, speaking words out loud that were only thought, providing a voice-over type of narrative, forgetting the pain—a portrait of Karl emerged: venal, petty, vain, stupid, lazy. The list of Karl’s flaws and foibles made for good anecdotes.
“So what did you do then?” the other guest, a model named Arieka, asked. She had been laughing so hard tears were streaming down her face as Peter recounted some of his discoveries during his first days on the job.
He took a swig from his fourth cup of coffee and answered, “What could I do? I tied his shoes. I mean, you make the simple assumption that a grown man knows how to tie his own shoes and . . .” Peter made a face and threw his hands up. “But I should have known better,” he continued in between the laughter. “After all, he was in the government.”
“Now that sounds familiar!” the host chimed in. The audience roared.
Arieka lit a cigarette and offered the pack around. Itto accepted and on an impulse Peter did as well.
“Oh, now that’s interesting,” Winston observed, “I was under the impression you didn’t smoke.”
“Oh, I don’t usually,” Peter replied with deceptive honesty. “For most of my life it’s been illegal or unavailable.”
“Illegal?” Arieka asked. “Do they have the same registration of smokers?”
“No, not at all. When I said illegal, I meant illegal for me. You see, I had no rights—not even the right to smoke myself into an early grave.” The audience laughed at the absurdity. “I would guess I was the only person in the Reich who wasn’t legally permitted to kill me.”
“So it wasn’t concern for your health?” Arieka asked disingenuously.
“I don’t think so.” Peter winked at her. He quite liked her—she had helped him out on a number of his stories, offering the obvious straight lines or leading questions like an unrehearsed double act. “In any case, I certainly inhaled a lot. You see, mein Herr had me light his cigarettes—apparently his mother told him not to play with matches either”—Peter paused to let the laughter quiet down—“and every time I’d light a cigarette for him, he blew smoke at me. I just thought I’d find out what it was like to smoke a cigarette from the filtered end.”
Something in Peter’s whimsical tone of voice and studiously overcasual atti-tude made the audience roar with laughter. He himself marveled that he could be so humorous about things that had hurt so very much.
“I blow smoke at a man to turn off unwanted sexual advances,” Arieka admitted.
“Now there’s something I bet you hadn’t considered,” the host offered.
“No, I hadn’t.” Peter drew deeply from the cigarette—not at all like a curious novice.
“What about the women? Did you get it on with any of them?” Itto asked.
“You’d have to see his wife to believe her.” Peter shook his head in mock horror.
“Probably not unlike mine,” the host joked. The audience gasped appropriately. “Oops, did I say that?” the host responded, then turning toward the camera, made a mad plea to be forgiven by his spouse. When he had finished, he turned toward Peter. “But certainly that’s a long time to go without! Maybe a daughter?”
“There is a difference between dying to have sex and being willing to die for it,” Peter answered somewhat seriously. “Besides, a well-raised German girl would never have considered tainting herself by mixing with an inferior such as myself. I was, to them, a lesser being,” he added, a note of bitterness creeping into his voice. He caught his error as he noticed the look on his host’s face, so he quickly added, “As you would be as well.”
“Me?” Winston asked with what sounded like genuine astonishment. “But you don’t know anything about me!”
“Your decadent behavior betrays your low origins,” Peter stated dryly.
Expertly following Peter’s cue, Winston asked, “Decadent? What do I do that’s decadent?”
“Ah, what don’t you Americans do?” Peter
answered casually, pleased that he could make it clear to his audience that he was not, by their standards, an exception. Of course, it wasn’t quite true, but it was close enough, and he began, without hesitation, to list off typically American behavior—actions of which they would normally be quite proud—and explained how each could be interpreted as decadent, disruptive, or insufficiently deferential. “Your First Amendment alone is proof to them of an incorrigible lack of discipline in this society,” Peter stated as part of his list. “You’re so disorganized, you let people name their children anything they want to—no book of names for you! And your marriage laws—or lack thereof—show a complete disregard for racial purity!” he concluded, nicely bringing the topic back to where it had started.
“Phew! Do you think they actually bought into that?” Itto asked.
“Clearly.”
“But the sex thing. It sounds confusing, how do they keep track?”
“For the average citizen, believe it or not, there are actually posters explaining what is and is not allowed. In particular, sex with a non-Aryan would not only have been immoral, it would have been akin to treason.”
“We have something similar where I came from,” Arieka said. “I lived in the city before the civil war, before I fled to America, but back in the village, if you mixed with the neighboring people, you would be shunned—even killed.”
“Were they white?” the host asked.
Arieka raised an eyebrow in obvious disbelief. “In the middle of Africa? No, they were black, like me.”
“How could you tell the difference?” Itto asked naively. He had been hammeringthe coffee as well.
Peter snickered into his hand. Arieka laughed outright. “How do Europeans tell each other apart? Tribal hatreds always find a way.”
Winston veered the conversation away from such serious topics, and it continued for some time in a lively and generally lighthearted manner. After his third cigarette, Peter decided he had pushed the curiosity idea far enough and he refused more. At a break in the topic, the host pointed at Peter’s left hand and said, “I notice you’re not wearing a wedding ring. Does that mean the young ladies in the audience have a chance? Or is there a Mrs. Halifax out there?”
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